By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
A four-game winning streak to close out the regular season gave the Big Foot boys basketball team a bit of momentum heading into Tuesday night’s WIAA Division 3 regional opener at East Troy.
Unfortunately for the Chiefs, that momentum came to end — and it didn’t take long as East Troy jumped out to a 28-13 halftime lead and cruised from there for a 72-45 victory.
The loss ended Big Foot’s season at 7-16 overall, while East Troy improved to 14-8 and advances to a regional semifinal Friday against third-seeded Beloit Turner, which beat Palmyra-Eagle 60-46 on Tuesday.
Logan Eischeid led Big Foot with 13 points, followed by Heath Dillenbeck and Beau Cary each with 11. East Troy’s Jonathan Ciriacks had 24 points to lead all scorers, followed by Nick Bourdo with 17, A.J. Vukovich with 10 and Michael Polakoski with nine.
Big Foot closed its regular season last week with a 63-44 win over Palmyra-Eagle to finish the Rock Valley Conference slate at 6-10.
To complete a four-game winning streak on the heels of a 13-game losing skid was a positive way to finish the regular season, Big Foot coach Mike Dowden said.
“I am very happy for our guys,” Dowden said before Tuesday’s playoff game. “They kept working on a nightly basis to get better, and I felt like we had some really good practices during our losing stretch.
“Those practices finally turned into good games, and I was even more proud as our practices continued to improve, even after seeing success.”
Big Foot was in control throughout, as it built a 25-16 first-half lead, and then outscored the Panthers by 10 points to close things out.
“We executed on offense and played well on defense,” Dowden said. “They were able to take advantage of some size mismatches on the interior, but we knew that might be the case.
“We thought, however, over the course of the game that we could get situations that were in our favor and knew we just had to capitalize on that.”
Eischeid led the way with 20 points and two steals, followed by Cary with 11 points, 16 rebounds, seven assists and two steals. Jackson Enz added nine points.
Girls’ season ends
The Big Foot girls saw their Division 3 tournament run end on Friday night with a 61-41 loss to third-seeded Edgerton.
Big Foot closed the year at 17-7. Edgerton lost in the regional final to second-seeded Madison Edgewood on Saturday.
Edgerton took a commanding 33-10 halftime lead and never looked back.
Olivia Briggs led the Chiefs with 13 points, followed by Payton Courier with 11 and Reagan Courier with eight.
Attempts to reach Big Foot coach Rick Schoenbeck for comment were unsuccessful at press time.
Results of All-RVC voting and a statistical wrap up of the Big Foot boys and girls seasons will run in a future edition.
